Travels in Asia Minor, and Greece:: Or, An Account of a Tour Made ..., Τόμος 1

of south, its mazes very intricate; and unites with the Maeander below Miletus, deepening as it advances, and swelled after heavy rains with rills from the sides of the mountain.

Whelerf- and Spon are indebted for the account, which they have published of this region, to a journey begun in June, 1673, by Dr. Pickering and some merchants of Smyrna. These travellers, quitting Changlee, about four in the morning, gained the top of Mycale, on which they had an extensive view, and one of them designed the mazes of the Maeander. They descended by a difficult and narrow track, and in two hours came into the plain, having left behind the remains of a castle eastward. From Samsun or Priene, then a village at the foot of Mycale, they passed through a large plain to the Maeander, called by the Turks Boiuc-Minder, or the Great M(Bander, which they crossed at a ferry, where it was about sixteen fathom broad, and as many deep in the middle, as the man informed them, with the current very swift. About two hours after this, they arrived at Palatsha, where they pitched their tents on the banks of a large river, which, running through a great lake, falls into the Maeander.

The reader will observe, that these travellers cross the river but once between Sansum and Palatsha. The ferry therefore was below the junction of the two beds. There the stream was called The Great M(Bander, probably to distinguish it, not, as has been supposed, from the Cayster, which is remote, but from the other, or Little River, which it receives. This they mistook for the principal stream, being ignorant of the true Maeander, with which the lake of Myus communicates, and which runs by Palatsha. This also lay beneath

them, when on Mount Mycale, and was seen distinctly, as in a chart. Their draughtsman delineated its turnings and windings for those of the old and famous river; and its mazes, which helped to impose on them, prevented even the suspicion of an error.

CHAP. LIII.

The Maander muddy—The bed—Its course to the lake—To the sea—Change in the face of the region—Its ancient geography The islands before Miletus—The rocks of Osebashd—Increase of land—Its progress unnoticed—Future encroachments.

We have already mentioned the Maeander among the rivers of Asia Minor, anciently noted for the production of new land. The stream, it was remarked, in passing through the ploughed grounds of Phrygia and Caria, collected much slime, and bringing it down continually, added to the coast at its mouth.

The Maeander was indictable for removing the soil, when its margin tumbled in; and the person, who recovered damages, was paid from the income of the ferries.* The downfalls were very frequent, and are supposed, with probability, to be the cause of the curvity of the bed; the earth carried away from one part lodging in another, and replacing the loss sustained on one side, by adding to the opposite bank.

We have described the stream as crossing from near Mount Mcssogis to the foot of Titanas opposite to Priene; and on

* Strabo, p. 580.

that side it continues, running toward the mouth of the lake of Myus. Probably the level of the intermediate plain determined it in that course ; the soil washed from Mycale, or supplied by the torrent, raising the surface there, and forbidding its approach. The current repelled by the rocks of Osebasha, and contracted about the ferry, wore its present channel, while the mud was soft and yielding; and the bed, which we passed near them, was created from the same obstruction, the water after floods running off there more forcibly, as meeting with more resistance.

The river turns from the mouth of the lake, with many windings, through groves of tamarisk, toward Miletus ; proceeding by the right wing of the theatre in mazes to the sea, which is in view, and distant, as we computed, about eight miles; the plain smooth and level as a bowling green, except certain knolls extant in it, near mid-way, before Miletus.* One of these, the northernmost, is seen distinct, as a hillock; and on a bigger ranging with it is a village named Bautenau. In that part is the union of the water-course of Priene with the river, which winds to the south of the hillocks, and has on its margin, two or more miles beyond, a small fortress. The extremity of the plain by the shore appeared, from the precipice of Priene, marshy, or bare, and as mud. Such was the face of this region, when we saw it. How different from its aspect, when the mountains were boundaries of a gulf, and Miletus, Myus, and Priene, maritime cities."f

Strabo, a geographer, as exact as comprehensive, whose volume is indeed an inestimable treasure, will furnish us, as it were, with a chart, enabling us to contemplate this coast,

• Strabo, p. 580.

t See a view in the Ionian Antiquities.

as it existed toward the commencement of the Christian era; before a famous sophist* affirmed of it, that the river had taken the sea from the navigator, and given it to the husbandman to be divided into fields; that furrows were seen in the place of waves, and kids sporting in the room of dolphins; and that instead of hearing the hoarse mariner, you were delighted with the sweet echo of the pastoral pipe.

Miletus had then four ports, one of them very capacious; and before it was a cluster of small islands. Beyond Miletus, the coast winding, was a bay called the Latmian, from Latmus, the adjacent mountain. In this bay was "Heraclea under Latmus," a small town, once called Latmos, with a road for vessels; and near that place, after crossing a rivulet, you was shewn a cave, with the sepulchre of Endymion. On this mountain, it was fabled, Luna cast that hero and hunter into a profound sleep, to have the pleasure of saluting him. After Heraclea was Pyrrha, an inconsiderable town, the distance between them by sea about one hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half. From Miletus to Heraclea was a little more, coasting the bay; but from Miletus to Pyrrhayf- in a straight course, was only thirty stadia, or

* Himerius. Photius, p. US5.

fThe Latin interpreter of Strabo has omitted the-words From Miletus to Pyrrha. See also Cellanus, p. 52.

The geographer, after mentioning slightly Pyrrha and Heraclea as inconsiderable towns, advertises his reader, that the compass of his work requires him not to dwell but on places of note. This passage is grosly mistranslated. The interpreter will frequently mislead those, who attend not to the original ; and is, in this instance, the sole cause why Wheler, finding himself puzzled, suspects Strabo to be less accurate in this portion of his work than he pretends to be.

The river running by the theatre of Miletus perplexed Wheler exceedingly. He supposes Miletus to have beeu Pyrrha, and Branchidae to be Heraclea. Spon, with